The purpose of this post is to outline why your brand or manufacturing company should work with an Amazon management, marketing, and advertising agency. The most prominent theme I want to reiterate with this topic is that you should focus on what you are best at, your core competency, and outsource all other non-value-added activities (keep reading! This will be outlined in a story from Jeff Bezos about breweries building their own power generators). At Goat Consulting, we continue to find the clients that have the best success and accomplish their goals selling on Amazon are the ones that have a laser focus on their core competency and hire out services in the areas they could be better with. This can be applied to manufacturing or products, shipping, IT, HR, finance, and other areas of business, but for the sake of this post I want to focus on the management, marketing, and advertising aspects for selling on Amazon and why you should hire an Amazon marketing agency. This post will revisit the topics of focusing on your expertise, value of Amazon marketing agencies, and how Goat Consulting can help you accomplish your goals selling on Amazon.
Lesson in Specialization and Comparative Advantage from Jeff Bezos
Instead of pulling out the economics textbook, to outline the idea of specialization, comparative advantage, and gains from trade I want to share a video of Jeff Bezos at Startup School 2008 sharing a story about a 300-year-old brewery in Luxemburg that started using electric power. The entire video is an insightful lesson on business and startups, but our focus is on - 4:46-6:15
This brewery (in the business of making beer) along with other businesses at the time wanted to use electric power to power their operations. Since there was no electric grid to buy power, the brewery started making their own electric generators and attempted to become experts in power generation to create their own electric power to make their production more efficient. The important thing to notice here is the fact that they generated their own power, did not make their beer taste better. The problem (and lesson) here is that undifferentiated lifting, the complex/difficult/ever-changing work and infrastructure required for you to launch or sell your product, needs to be done at world-class level and needs to serve your business and products. At the time, this brewery may not have had the luxury of purchasing electricity from the power grid, but should they have focused their resources and efforts on building generators when their core competency is brewing beer?
Fortunately for us now, we live in a world where your business has access to services and resources to help you focus on what you do best. You do not need to build your own generator in order to manufacture your widget, invent the telephone to call your customers, or have to hire and train your employees in complex and domain specific areas like selling on Amazon. Before we get to selling on Amazon, let's focus on your brand and manufacturing business to find out what your core competency is and where you should focus on your expertise.
Focus on Your Expertise
As a brand or manufacturer, it is vitally important that you understand what you are best at in your business. As a brand, some core competencies can include customer service, developing new products, or brand recognition. A few core competencies for a manufacturer can be efficient production of your product, buying power, or quality in manufacturing. Focusing on your expertise and allocating resources to these skills will drive improvements to what actually differentiates you as a company. If you allocate limited resources (time, people, money) on areas of your business that do not drive incremental value or align with your vision will frustrate, distract, and cost you time and money that could be spent on what you are great at. A key component here is that a brand or manufacturer’s core competency is likely NOT selling on Amazon. The next section will outline how the core competency of an Amazon Marketing agency IS selling on Amazon.
Value of an Amazon Marketing Agency
An Amazon management, marketing, and advertising agency (like Goat Consulting), the business we are in is selling on Amazon. Selling your products on a new marketplace like Amazon can be difficult and confusing. Every online marketplace has a unique interface dashboard, product listing requirements and uploading process, reporting tools, compliance requirements, and advertising tools. On top of these complexities, the competition for selling is fierce and you need to be taking advantage of all the marketing and advertising tools in order to compete relative to other sellers and products. All of these tools and offerings are continuing to update and change and require attention to keep your Amazon store up to date. This is where an Amazon management, marketing, and advertising agency can be that partner for you and focus on the key areas of account strategy, merchandising, product ID, fulfillment, policy compliance, brand registry, advertising, and reporting. Hiring an employee to service this will either be expensive, or you will not have the understanding to train an employee. Hiring an outside agency also allows for flexibility with hiring/letting go as they are an independent contractor vs an internal employee. If Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 hour rule to be an expert in a subject, why would you start back on hour 1 learning how to sell on Amazon?
Frequently Asked Questions about Hiring an Amazon Markeing Agency
Why not hire my own Amazon Expert?
Hiring can be expensive and time-consuming. Also hiring someone full time can cost more after healthcare and benefits are added in. Lastly, it would be almost impossible to have the experience that our team has acquired over the last 8 years.
Is it easy to train an Amazon manager?
It can be difficult to train an Amazon manager since you first need to have Amazon expertise to show them how to launch, protect, and grow your brand on Amazon. Also, they will have to become an expert on your specific business which can be difficult to manage, while also learning the ropes within Amazon’s marketplace
Can Amazon run on autopilot once set up by an expert?
No, Amazon is a constantly changing platform that requires daily attention. There are always new certifications needed, new advertising campaign types invented, and new experiments to run so that you always stay on top of the Amazon search rankings.
How do I hire the best Amazon marketing Agency?
This can be difficult because best Amazon marketing agency can be something different to every company. Make sure that you have set goals you would like to accomplish and that the agenci’s services align with those goals. From there, ask for references to prove that they have a winning track record of making their clients happy.
Accomplish Your Goals on Amazon with Goat Consulting
Goat Consulting has found mutually beneficial success with brand and manufacturing clients being a 3rd-party outsourced management, marketing, and advertising agency. We would love to assist you today in establishing, protecting, and growing your brand on Amazon. If you need any help with selling on Amazon, please contact us below.
About the Author
This post was written by Will Tjernlund. Will Tjernlund is the co-founder and CMO at Goat Consulting. Will is a notable figure in the e-commerce industry, speaking at conferences around the world, including the United States, Europe, and Asia. Will started his Amazon selling career at his family's 80+ year-old manufacturing company with the goal of expanding their Amazon presence. The efforts by Will quickly made Amazon the number one sales channel for his family's business which now grosses tens of millions of dollars annually. Will uses his background in economics, experience selling on Amazon, and insights gained from speaking with businesses around the world to help brands and manufacturers have a clear strategy for success.
